I was totaling up the other night how many years I’ve spent nursing my children. After four children, it’s just under seven and a half years and counting. Our youngest is 18 months old and still loves to nurse, showing no interest in weaning. After that long, I feel like it's okay that I'm tired of breastfeeding! I’m fully committed to breastfeeding past one year. The physical, emotional, and mental health benefits are incredible, and I believe it’s good for moms, too! However, I wouldn’t for one moment lie that breastfeeding is always full of fuzzy, lovely, rose-hued moments, especially at this point in the game (for me). Sometimes I … [Read more...]

There are conferences and conventions for pretty much everything these days and many are becoming baby friendly by offering space for moms to nurse or pump or take unhappy babies. This is fantastic! But sometimes, baby friendly conferences don't cut it and moms are left in the lurch with no place to pump. What can you do? Recently I attended a conference with about 2,500 other people. The conference was listed as being baby friendly and nursing babes were welcome to come along. I was able to have by baby stay with grandparents so I could go and not be distracted. I took my trusty pump along and planned to use a mother's lounge to pump … [Read more...]

Heather, mother of ten children, is a personal friend of mine who is inspiring in many, many ways. One of them is that she has taken the time to nurse each of her children for their first year of life! I asked her if she could share some of her wisdom with us and she graciously agreed.   1. Thank you so much for agreeing to answer a few questions to give us insight into what it’s like to be a breastfeeding mom of ten! Can we start with you telling us a bit about yourself and your journey through motherhood? I’m honored to be invited to share a bit about myself and my story, Anjanette. I guess I would be considered an “older, … [Read more...]

One of the best things we can do for our children as nursing mothers is to normalize the breastfeeding relationship to them. When they don't bat an eye at a baby at the breast, then we've successfully taught them that feeding babies is normal, natural and nothing to gawk at or criticize. I don't think we need to go to extremes to do this, but we should be conscientious in some matters. When my oldest child was younger, I made an observation that whenever a baby was being fed in any of her books, it was always drinking from a bottle. She noticed this as well. She knew that she and her baby brother had been breastfed. Bottles were the thing … [Read more...]

My son was born with an upper lip tie. I didn't recognize the issues we were having were related to his poor latch until he was already established at the breast. I had to fight for a referral to the right specialist to even have him checked out and it seemed no one would take me seriously. I was struggling with breastfeeding through a lip tie for most of my son's life because I was told that I would have to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket on top of the cost to travel to a  laser surgery professional to do the upper lip tie revision. I managed through the painful nursing sessions and I kept telling myself that maybe one day we can … [Read more...]

As a mother I often see articles pop up on my Facebook newsfeed. As a nursing mother, I pay special attention to those about breastfeeding. One day I was reading an article about a woman who was approached and asked to stop nursing in public. The question about what my husband, Richard, would do if I were in that situation entered my mind. It then dawned on me that we never discussed his feelings on nursing in public or if it makes him uncomfortable! In fact we never discussed if I would formula feed or breastfeed in general, I just did it. So I found myself curious and decided to ask his thoughts on the matter. Here is one man's perspective … [Read more...]

Have you ever noticed after you buy something new, everyone seems to have it? It’s called perceptual vigilance. The same thing happened when I became pregnant and, subsequently, when I started breastfeeding. I can’t recall ever noticing anyone breastfeeding in my pre-mommy days, nor can I ever recall seeing news headlines about "nurse-ins." Now that I am a mother of two daughters, 23 month old Sophia and 6 month old Harper, I see such headlines pop up on my newsfeed pretty regularly and I got to thinking about my experience...and the evolution of breastfeeding from my first to my second. The Evolution of Breastfeeding When I became pregnant … [Read more...]